Chapter 161
Chapter 161
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 161
Chapter Title: Salt Circle
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Sharp bear claws sprouted from the back of Tumor's hands.
Feeling as if the massive forepaw of a grizzly bear was about to crash down on his head, Lee Si-woo quickly ducked.
Whoosh!
Lee Si-woo swallowed dryly at the attack, which felt like a train passing right over his head.
He had only felt a single blow, but he was certain.
The moment he allowed an attack to land, it would be over.
“Elder!”
Luktator responded to Lee Si-woo's shout.
The nails Luktator had brought from Chapter 1 shot from his hand, aiming for the Grizzly's torso.
Ting! Ting!
But the nails bounced off, unable to even pierce the red fur covering the leather suit.
It might have worked on the white monster, but piercing the defense of a Rank 3 suit that could easily block bullets was impossible with mere nails.
Realizing his attacks were useless, Luktator clicked his tongue and wedged the nails between his fingers.
‘If my teeth won't work, my gums will have to!’
Seeing Lee Si-woo being driven into a corner by the Grizzly's claws, Luktator dashed forward.
Empowered by his Rat Suit's Swiftness option, Luktator approached the Grizzly's rear with the speed of wind and pummeled the back of its neck with his nail-studded fists.
Kagagagang!
But with a sound of scraping metal, the nails crumpled.
Feeling a sense of futility, as if striking plate armor with a wooden sword, Luktator shouted.
“I'm no help! You'll have to handle this yourself!”
Hearing Luktator, Lee Si-woo gritted his teeth, drew a green dagger, and activated his Frog Suit's option, 'Jumping'.
Thwump!
Leaping high enough to touch the ceiling of the small mart, Lee Si-woo extended his palm.
A hole opened in his palm, and a purple tongue shot out.
Lick.
After the purple tongue licked the Grizzly's red-furred suit and retracted, Lee Si-woo landed with a somersault. He immediately drew his green dagger and charged forward.
‘Did it work?’
Struck by the Frog skill, Paralysis Tongue, the Grizzly couldn't move until Lee Si-woo was right in front of it.
Sensing his skill had worked, Lee Si-woo immediately aimed the Poison Dagger in his hand at the Grizzly's heart.
Just then, as if it had been waiting, the Grizzly swiped its forepaw at Lee Si-woo's abdomen.
Thwack!
“Keuk!”
With an impact that felt like his organs would burst from his throat, Lee Si-woo was sent flying backward.
He crashed through five or six nearby shelves and tumbled unsightly across the floor. As he let out a dry cough, blood rose in his throat.
And that wasn't all.
The red bar at the top of Lee Si-woo's vision—his Suit HP—had only 20 percent remaining.
A single blow had wiped out 80 percent of his suit's durability.
‘I was lucky. If that attack had hit a vital spot instead of my abdomen, it would have been over instantly.’
Thanks to the suit's defense, he had barely withstood the blow, but as Lee Si-woo struggled to regain his senses, he knew that one more hit would truly be the end. Then, Luktator's sharp voice reached his ears.
“Danger! Dodge now!”
Like a bear moving in to finish off its prey, the Grizzly rushed at Lee Si-woo, its claws tearing through the air.
Facing the killing intent of a strike meant to rip through both the air and his neck, Lee Si-woo activated Jumping once more.
Thwump!
Barely dodging the attack, Lee Si-woo soared into the air, did a somersault, and extended his palm forward, using Paralysis Tongue again.
Lick.
The Grizzly's body immediately stiffened.
‘It's not that it doesn't work.’
Lee Si-woo aimed the tip of the Poison Dagger in his hand at the Grizzly's neck.
‘The paralysis just wears off faster than it did on the Elder. It's probably because of the high-rank suit. In that case... I'll throw it.’
The Poison Dagger left Lee Si-woo's hand, tracing a green arc as it struck the Grizzly's neck.
Klaaang!
It certainly didn't pierce it.
But Lee Si-woo could see it.
The green energy flowing from the Poison Dagger left a mark on the Grizzly's neck.
Then, a system message appeared before Lee Si-woo's eyes.
[The target has been poisoned. The target's Suit HP will decrease by 10% per minute.]
Considering that a suit is deactivated the moment its HP reaches zero, the Poison Dagger was an absurdly overpowered item.
It meant that any powerful enemy could be disarmed if he could just survive for ten minutes.
However, Lee Si-woo couldn't help but let out a bitter laugh.
Survive against this monster for ten minutes?
It was impossible.
‘Besides... I can't use my skills indefinitely.’
To make matters worse, the blue MP bar below his HP bar had already decreased by a third.
He could use Paralysis Tongue a total of six times, and he had already used it twice.
At this point, Lee Si-woo made a clear judgment.
‘This isn't an opponent I can beat with my current skills. A head-on fight is out of the question.’
Just then, currents of wind gathered in Tumor's right hand, transforming into the shape of a rake.
Seeing Tumor with the massive wind rake in his right hand, Lee Si-woo shouted to his companions.
“Everyone! Break the windows and get outside!”
As Lee Si-woo sprinted towards the windows with all his might, he glanced at the young Si-woo.
If that young Si-woo was his past self.
Yes, if they were one and the same.
He would be trying to figure out a way to win against an unbeatable foe, and at this very moment, he would be thinking the exact same thing as me.
‘Bring that out.’
Did he read the look in Lee Si-woo's eyes through the helmet?
The young Si-woo grabbed two sacks, broke through the mart window, and went outside.
Seeing this, Lee Si-woo was about to break a window and jump out himself when the massive wind rake struck him from behind.
It was the Grizzly's skill, Wind Rake.
Kwwaaaang!
The wall of the small mart was shattered to pieces by the Wind Rake.
Lee Si-woo was thrown through the opening, rolling across the concrete floor.
Thanks to his quick reaction, he hadn't taken enough damage to deactivate his suit, but his remaining HP was at 2 percent.
To put it bluntly, even a grazing blow from a fist would be enough to send him to his grave.
Tumor emerged from the cloud of dust and spoke.
“The Frog Suit and the Poison Dagger... Though they're only Rank 1, they're pieces of equipment that are said to exist only in the 'Codex,' never obtained or seen by anyone.”
The Codex.
A book that cataloged every item in the world of trials.
And items that no one had ever farmed, existing only in the Codex, were called Mystery Items by the users.
A name given because no one had ever managed to obtain them.
“So it was you. You opened the Secret Chapter....”
Tumor clenched his fists.
He had finally found him.
The source of all this trouble.
And for so many years.
The reason why a few members of Dawn had been forced to remain in this old, fake world.
Tumor spoke, his voice steeped in hatred and resentment.
“If it weren't for you... if you just disappeared, we wouldn't have to protect this damn world. And we wouldn't have had to commit this god-awful slaughter today....”
Wary of the raw killing intent boiling up from Tumor, Lee Si-woo spoke.
“Si-woo! Are you ready?”
The young Si-woo answered Lee Si-woo's question.
“Done! Come over here!”
The young Si-woo had already poured salt from the sacks to draw a circle just large enough for three people.
Before Lee Si-woo could say anything, he saw that Luktator had already scurried inside the salt circle. Lee Si-woo looked up at the sky.
The pitch-black night sky filled his vision, and faint whispers and the sound of clothes rustling in the wind echoed in his ears.
Did he sense an ominous presence?
Tumor also stopped and looked around.
‘What is this? This unpleasant feeling...?’
Just then, Tumor's body was suddenly lifted into the air.
It was as if a giant, invisible hand had seized the back of his neck and hoisted him up.
Seeing Tumor flailing in the air like a small doll in a human's grasp, Lee Si-woo sprinted toward the young Si-woo.
Swoosh.
A sinister feeling, like a lukewarm breeze or a breath tickling the back of his neck by his bedside at dawn, made the fine hairs on Lee Si-woo's arms stand on end.
‘A specter.’
He couldn't see it, but he could feel it clearly.
An entity, invisible to the naked eye, was targeting him.
Lee Si-woo used Jumping to launch himself into the air and used the momentum to instantly land inside the salt circle where the young Si-woo was.
Only then did Lee Si-woo feel the ominous breath and touch that had been targeting the back of his neck disappear, and he let out a hot breath.
Beside him, the young Si-woo watched Tumor thrashing in the air like a drowning man and spoke.
“Specters hate all living things. So they just... everything they see....”
Before the young Si-woo could finish, Tumor's suit deactivated.
He had been hit by Lee Si-woo's poison, and to make matters worse, the specter's attack had completely depleted his Suit HP.
The moment the suit deactivated, Tumor's limbs were torn off, like a criminal being drawn and quartered.
Watching the shower of blood and entrails falling from the sky, the young Si-woo continued.
“...rip them to shreds. But it's a bit better if you're inside a building. Specters use up energy passing through exterior walls, so they're weaker inside. Well, even so, it's impossible to exorcise them if you don't know how.”
Lee Si-woo asked the young Si-woo.
“...How do you know all that?”
The young Si-woo shrugged and answered nonchalantly.
“Because I've dealt with them myself.”
“Those things? You?”
“Yeah. As you know, I was captured by a strange man when I was young and was treated as a sort of test subject. Well, I've escaped that damn laboratory now... but I still have the experience and knowledge from dealing with 'failures' like them.”
Hearing the young Si-woo call the specters that had brutally murdered the powerful Tumor in less than a minute 'failures,' Lee Si-woo let out a hollow laugh and asked.
“Failures? Those things?”
“Yeah. As you can see, they have a lot of weaknesses. They can't enter a barrier made with a common seasoning like salt, and they're vulnerable to silver, garlic, or religious artifacts.”
“If they have weaknesses, can't they just be improved and eliminated?”
“If it were that easy, that man would never have given up on them. To begin with, they're a type of psychic entity born from the fear in people's minds. Some were born from the common person's fear of ghosts, others from the fear of phantoms. Some were born from the deep-seated dread of demons held by the religious.”
“Psychic entities born from the mind....”
“That's why they can be exorcised. People are instinctively afraid of them, but at the same time, they also imagine safeguards or weapons that can repel them. So they're invincible to the ignorant, but powerless against those with knowledge. Just like now.”
The young Si-woo casually stuck his hand into a sack filled with silver powder, grabbed a handful, and threw it into the air.
At that, a specter that had been lurking nearby, eyeing Lee Si-woo's group, shrieked in agony.
-Kyaaaaak!
The silver powder erupted like gunpowder meeting a flame, incinerating the specter's entire body in midair.
Then, the specter's form, close to that of a gray phantom, was revealed, and Lee Si-woo could also see it writhing in pain like a snail doused in salt.
“So they're weak to silver powder.”
“Yes. Specters possess all the strengths of the ghosts and phantoms that people fear, but they carry their weaknesses as well.”
Suddenly, a curiosity flashed through his mind, and Lee Si-woo spoke.
“Hmm, so what do we do now? Do we have to go around exorcising specters while sprinkling silver powder?”
“Hey, are you crazy? No one knows how many of those specters there are. So we have to wait.”
“Wait? Until when?”
“Uh... until the sun comes up?”
Lee Si-woo looked down at Luktator, who had already flopped onto the ground and was now tapping his toes.
As if displeased by Lee Si-woo's gaze, Luktator smacked his lips and said.
“What, what is it?”
As the already cramped space inside the salt barrier became even tighter with Luktator lying down, Lee Si-woo spoke to the young Si-woo in a reluctant tone.
“...We can't make this salt circle any bigger, can we?”
“Nope. If even a tiny gap opens in the salt barrier, the specters will tear us to shreds. Plus, since we're outdoors, the wind means we have to be extra careful maintaining the barrier. If the salt gets scattered by the wind and the barrier is compromised, we're dead.”
Hearing the young Si-woo's words, Lee Si-woo had a bad feeling and asked.
“Don't tell me we have to stay up all night without a wink of sleep, sprinkling salt on the barrier?”
“Wow, you catch on quick. In that case, I'm gonna get some shut-eye. We could have slept indoors, but this is your fault. So you can handle the cleanup. Deal?”
As if Lee Si-woo's answer didn't matter, the young Si-woo flopped down next to Luktator.
Seeing his shamelessly brazen past self, Lee Si-woo let out a groan and looked back at Luktator.
Luktator, sensing Lee Si-woo's gaze asking for help, at least in shifts, spoke in an indifferent voice.
“What, what is it?”
“......”
Lee Si-woo silently sat down next to the sack of salt.
It seemed it was going to be a long night.